Company Rebuilding Puerto Rico's Power Grid Starts Whiny Twitter War with San Juan Mayor

Having at last been made aware of the magnitude of the humanitarian disaster in Puerto Rico caused by Hurricane Maria last month, it appears that Donald Trump's administration has fully committed itself to rebuilding the territory that is home to some 3.4 million American citizens. To the befuddlement of experts, though, the task of rebuilding the entire island's power grid has been entrusted to Whitefish Energy, a two-year-old Montana company that happens to have ties to Secretary of the Interior and noted Whitefish native Ryan Zinke—and whose two full-time employees apparently work out of a log cabin in the woods.

After San Juan's mayor, Carmen Yulín Cruz, joined the many other voices who questioned the wisdom of handing a no-bid $300 million contract to an underqualified start-up, Whitefish responded just like any other firm who takes seriously the gravity of its undertaking would do: by throwing a temper tantrum on Twitter. First, it issued a plaintive statement expressing "disappointment" with a politician for her crime of sharing logical, legitimate concerns about whether placing the island's future in the hands of a two-person outfit located some 3000 miles away is in Puerto Rico's best interests.

And when Yulín Cruz correctly asserted that asking for a transparent bidding process isn't exactly an outlandish request, Whitefish taunted her by threatening to pull its subcontractors out of the territory altogether.

Shortly after an alarmed Mayor Cruz responded by noting the obvious and disgusting implications of this statement, someone at the company who possesses both a brain and also the tiniest shred of professionalism managed to wrest control of Whitefish's social media accounts.

When asked for comment by the Los Angeles Times, a company spokesperson who is not being paid nearly enough to sacrifice what little remains of his credibility stated that the tweet was not a "threat," but instead merely described what would happen if the company's contract were to be voided. (This is a little like telling someone that you are thinking of punching them in the face, but reassuring them that that statement is merely a factual description of what would ensue if you were to propel your closed fist towards their jaw at a high rate of speed.) “If we were to leave, the number of people in that tweet would not be working," Ken Luce, a spokesperson for Whitefish, explained to the Times, presumably while staring mournfully at himself in the bathroom mirror and pondering how his life came to this. "That’s a simple fact.”

Finally, the company issued an apology, stating that its earlier comments did not reflect "who we are"—which, I suppose, means that they imagine themselves to be something other than a pair of Internet tough guys who got their feelings hurt.

Despite President Trump's best paper towel-throwing efforts, three-quarters of Puerto Rico lacks power, and one-quarter still doesn't have access to running water. Glad to see friends of the administration starting Twitter beefs and getting rich off of all this, though.